This post is best experienced while listening to “Just” by Radiohead.

What’s your criteria for a decent, acceptable season? Assuming we’re building towards or rebuilding from a championship-caliber season, I say that a 4 loss season is decent for Auburn. Not awful, not great. Enough to complain and critique but not enough to think the world is falling apart.

A few losses might be what defines a good season. Maybe you beat all the teams you’re supposed to, win against Georgia or Alabama, drop a few to other championship caliber programs. Maybe lose the bowl game against a reputable opponent. 10-2, 9-3 kind of regular season finish. In today’s football, that’s most likely a spot in the playoff with a postseason that matters.

Great seasons are easy to define. You beat your rivals while competing for or winning a championship. I’m a bit odd in that I personally value the conference championship over the national championship. But that’ll change with the playoff and the diminishing value of the conference championship games. Undefeated, one, maybe two total losses in a season with all the right moments that are cause for celebration. Hardware comes home. That’s a great season for Auburn fans.

What becomes an unacceptable season, one that cannot be argued for as decent or good is when the losses start mounting past four. In some cases, you might lose four regular season games and the bowl game. In very particular situations, I can accept that. But in most, five or more losses in a season is a disaster. Six to seven losses is a call for a program evaluation. Eight or more is when money needs to be raised for a coaching change.

I think I can say that ALL or most Auburn fans will agree with these sentiments. No Auburn fan legitimately believes we will become like Alabama or Ohio St where we expect to compete for the national championship every single season. In fact, I would argue that our family mentality, as kooky as we can be, is something that sets us apart from other fanbases and programs. We embody the Auburn creed because we sincerely and authentically see it as part of our culture. So winning a national championship isn’t a necessity.

But I do think we expect 4 loss seasons to be the bottom.

So with all of that said, we are in the midst of a reality that we need to come to terms with. These expectations, reasonable ones by Auburn fans, are no longer reasonable.

At what point would you say it’s not a phase and actually a reality?

Because in the last 17 seasons, we have lost 5 or more games 12 times. I go back to 2008 because that is when Auburn signaled a culture change in football. We went with a new style of offense and attempted to build on offensive ingenuity for each of the coaching staffs we’ve had since. And the results have been dire.

In the last 17 seasons, we are 3-14 against Georgia. We are 4-13 against Alabama.

In the last 17 seasons, we have lost 6 or more games 6 times.

In the last 17 seasons, we have 2 great seasons and 2 decent seasons.

4 seasons where Auburn fans felt okay about the results. 13 seasons where Auburn fans felt disappointed, wronged, angered, out of place, frustrated, and misrepresented.

Yet despite our reality of being a disappointing program, we still enter seasons, games, and recruiting seasons as if there is some sense of entitlement that we are to be a competitive team. We treat Auburn football as if there is some kind of destination where we regain our rightful spot as a program that deserves at worst decent seasons. But there is no longer evidence that what we count as decent is a decent season. We set ourselves up for disappointment because we do not fully grasp the reality of who we are.

So when we enter an Iron Bowl after rushing the field against a 15th ranked non-rival opponent and expect to compete in Tuscaloosa against a potentially-playoff bound Alabama, we are only fooling ourselves.

We do this to ourselves. We have no reason to believe we are going to win, and we damn sure have no evidence in almost two decades to believe that we are entitled to a “rightful” place in college football. When you’re pounding your fist or screaming at the tv when Alabama is adding to their lead, you sound as ridiculous as an Ole Miss fan from 2000-2020. How laughable would it be to see an Ole Miss fan or Miss St fan or Arkansas fan getting upset about losing to the top programs in the conference while holding a “just you wait!” attitude?

For anyone who got emotionally upset about the results tonight or about the results of this season, you’re living in a fantasy world. Auburn is not “coming back.” We’re not about to turn the corner.

Unless there’s a Pat Dye out there to recreate a culture that worked for us in the past, we must redefine our expectations. 5-6 losses is decent. 3-4 losses is great. Making a decent bowl game is our goal. Not getting embarrassed is a win.